


blossom

by Wicked_Seraph



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Consent Issues, F/M, Guilt, Morning Sex, Somnophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27526381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Seraph/pseuds/Wicked_Seraph
Summary: It would so easy to let himself ignite, to let them both be consumed.[A series of drabbles concerning Thancred/Ryne. Tags and rating will be updated as needed.]
Relationships: Ryne | Minfilia/Thancred Waters
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. getting lost

Getting lost somewhere had a particular taste to it.

Thancred, of course, wouldn't understand, so consumed was he with the responsibility of undoing what had been done. But Ryne knew Eulmore better than he ever would, and she'd sooner taste the salt of a bitten tongue than tell him that more often than not, they'd strayed from the beaten path because she'd willed it so.

So that was part of it: the flavor of getting lost was inevitably copper with the secrecy of weighing her conscience against pity.

Thancred wasn't given to panic, and with his unnerving sense of direction it took hardly any time at all before he righted himself, tempering his own unease with vague – but sincere – platitudes. He gripped her hand tightly, murmuring comforting apologies, stroking the soft skin between thumb and forefinger in a way that ought not have ignited a spark.

Some days, she let it be just that: a spark. A small kernel of warmth that was hers alone to savor. It need not be embellished with anything else. She could savor her own sour guilt just as well with his affections, even as her doubts sapped the sweetness from them.

And yet –

How easy it was to dream, to sense something beyond his placid fondness like a bewitching aftertaste. There was a hesitation in the way he looked at or touched her, as though keeping something carefully fettered. Every so often she thought she could hear it in the way his breath caught when she returned the carefully passionless stroke against her hand or met his gaze measure for measure.

Oh, how he trembled – for her, against her, withdrawing as if afraid that acknowledging the embers would cause them to ignite. Knowing there were no eyes to witness, no ears to judge –

It would so easy to let himself ignite, to let them both be consumed.

Sweat coated the inside of their palms as he released his iron-like grip on her hand – as if his terror would be enough to extinguish his passions, as if she were naive enough to not have noticed.

A perverse curiosity overtook her in those moments as she lapped his terror from her palm. Not his seed, regrettably, but it would have to suffice until Thancred found his courage and lost his inhibitions. It was no coincidence, she thought, that the salinity of a bitten tongue or sweat-slick hands didn't taste too different.


	2. pet names

She knew that there was something unnatural blossoming between them – or, conversely, utterly banal, something to be expected between men and women with hearts to beat and flesh to yearn.

And yet – it was more. She knew it with rare certainty. The warmth that suffused her veins while she lay on his lap was too sweet and gentle to be mere passion, but burned too low and dark to be the kind of affection she was supposed to feel. The seductive depths of her own wants terrified her, as though peering into the fanged maw of an unknowable beast. The idea that Thancred might be intimately acquainted with such a beast...

She wasn't sure whether it excited or frightened her. It felt not unlike the peculiar flutter in her stomach when Thancred fought some manner of beast easily conquered, lips twisted in a feral grin as his skin was painted with sweat and the creature's blood.

_Who the beast was in this scenario?_

Too heavy, this weight between them; to speak of it would be to tear the gossamer threads that kept it suspended above their heads.

"It's dreadfully cold," she said instead, allowing a small thread of petulance into her words as she nestled closer, almost purring with the pleasure of his fingers running through her hair. There was something nameless and wonderful about his scent buried within soft wools, stoking twin fires as anything concerning Thancred often did.

"It is, poppet," Thancred agreed. Cautiously. His tone was dense, perhaps thick with sleep to anyone not inclined to think aught else would be troubling him. But curled up against him as she was, she could hear the infinitesimal quickening of his heart beat. The idle, sexless way he stroked her hair slowed.

"Poppet" was a private question, a door only opened when it was quiet enough to hear the humming current that arced between them. "Poppet" was something that she'd hated being addressed by when her curves hadn't filled and her dreams had been restful – but on Thancred's lips there was a delectable misdirection about them. She was too old for such things – too old to sleep innocuously in the same bed as her father, too old to pretend she couldn't figure out where his eyes would travel at any given point, too old to want such a rich kind of tenderness.

"Poppet" was an opportunity to nurse on sweetness without expectations, to take her fill without judgment.

"Poppet" could also be refused. Sometimes Ryne did not want to be Thancred's precocious "poppet."

"I'm cold, Papa," she murmured, trailing her fingers up the slope of his thigh, her breath warm with promise between them.


	3. somnophile

If Ryne were asked what her favorite time of day was, she knew the one answer she refused to give: dawn.

Sunrise was private. Ever the sentimentalist, sunrise knew just how to capture the things that made their cocoon so inviting, bathing the slopes and valleys of Thancred's frame in a conspiratorial kind of gold. In spite of Thancred being a light sleeper, Ryne always seemed to awake before he did, which meant precious moments to admire him in a way she rarely did:

Unguarded, mouth slack as he snored quietly, dreaming of gods knew what. The seemingly-constant furrow in his brow smoothed over, and she marveled at how constant vigilance added years to his features; like this, she thought she could see traces of the resourceful sea urchin with a disarming grin that she'd heard tales about.

Though but a recent development, she felt a delicious flare of heat at the expanse of bare flesh before her, and that which she knew lay beneath the false modesty of their bedsheets. She could feel his body heat radiating in the space between them, and shuddered with delight as she pressed against him, allowing it to thaw the chill that so quickly seeped into her bones.

She fit perfectly against him, as though he'd been made for her -- or her for him. The latter seemed to be truer, if the way his fingers and lust seemed to always find purchase where he sought it was any indication. He'd even said as much himself, moaning helplessly with grit teeth and white knuckles. It ought to have offended her, to be complimented on how well her father's lust sheathed within her -- and yet instead she felt a perverse pride in it. To be coddled and condescended to in public, clinging to Thancred's hand and affecting innocence made nighttime that much sweeter when she could unfurl beneath his hands.

However... there were delights reserved for the slow, languid stir of morning. Though she couldn't peer into the depths of Thancred's dreams, there was a roguish peak amidst the bedsheets that left little room for doubt.

How easy it would be to sup the nectar, to find a thread of wakefulness and milk it from him. Though still learning, she knew what quickened his pulse and whet his appetite, and such ministrations were almost cruelly simple when slumber had divested him of usual precautions.

Instead she settled for swinging a leg over his waist gingerly, reaching behind her to grasp her prize, nearly gasping from the pleasure of its heat as she guided him.

Beneath her Thancred murmured, voice thick and still submurged in sleep. "R... Ryne...?"

She placed a free hand on his lip, cooing and silencing him as her other hand coaxed him inside of her -- gently, so slowly she found herself holding her breath. There was a sweet paradox in that her excitement meant he slipped in easily, that she could avoid stoking his own passions. Even so she whimpered shamelessly, eyes slamming shut and limbs trembling as she fought the impulse to rock her hips.

She knew he felt it; there was a shallowness to his breaths that wasn't there before, and instinct would peel away the deceptive layers of dreams. But for now she would allow herself this union; the agonizing tension alone would fan the embers until he awoke.

"Good morning, Thancred," she whispered sweetly.


	4. pixie dust

Her heart fluttered, skipping stones along her rib cage even as she shut her eyes and slowed her breaths and willed herself to sleep.

After all, the beast only visited when she slumbered.

If she were younger – more naive – she might have described it as a pixie, something ethereal that wandered into her dreams. A pixie would have powdered her dreams with magic, would have dusted her whimsy with peals of laughter like bells.

But crimson and heat had blossomed in her belly years ago, and her dreams more closely resembled rumpled satins. The creature that stirred in her bed at night was dense and hummed with roaring blood. He purred his contentment against the sweat-slick curve of her neck, calloused fingers tracing the peaks and valleys of her flesh until she trembled against him.

She knew, almost instinctively, that silence was what dissolved the boundary between reality and dreams, what allowed the beast to steal into her room at night. She knew that their union relied on the flimsy fabric of illusion. She feigned sleep. The beast feigned ravishment. Dawn dispelled the glamour and allowed them both to pretend darkness lurking in the corners were mere shadows.

She sighed, ignoring the frenetic tempo of heart beat as she took a deep breath.

A flicker of heat tingled between her thighs; she cupped her fingers, dipping beneath the seam of her smallclothes.

Slick expectation; the nearly-translucent fabric was damp with it. She crooked her fingers towards her belly, grazing the quickening bud and gasping from the contact.

She couldn’t – such things were sweeter when the digits pressed against her, inside her, were rough and foreign, and she was nothing if not a hedonist.

And yet –

and yet –

Her body knew his warmth and shape better than its own, a nocturnal flower unfurling to offer its nectar as soon as the moon concealed them. Even the silent creature that plucked petals and probed her sweetness knew, teeth claiming the tender flesh of her neck to stifle a moan, to swallow his words.

“You’re so wet for me,” he whispered against her, soft enough for the wind to claim his voice, fingers trailing along, within.

“Oh, Than—“ she murmured, eyelids fluttering closed as she risked the briefest of strokes before biting her tongue hard enough to taste copper. _How pathetic_ , she thought, that even the mere memory of him was enough to drive her to this point. And yet –

To give name to the shadow would destroy it; she knew hearing his own name would destroy the thin, gossamer thread of deniability and the indelible imprint of Lust’s teeth against her lips.

She no longer knew at which point its grooves had begun to mirror her own.


End file.
